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Comment Re:Crappy IT security has consequences (Score 1) 70

I can tell you that's wrong.

You can provide an anecdote of your personal experience in one case. I, however, can tell you about the half billion dollar scam of FirstEnergy (Ohio), or what's gone on in Oregon, California, Michigan and others. The cases PUC scams around "smart grid" equipment are legion. Some of them are exposed. Many are entirely suppressed when the more competent criminals ensure the auditors are (willingly) prevented from noticing.

Comment Re:Crappy IT security has consequences (Score 3, Insightful) 70

they are incompetent

You are exhibiting insufficient cynicism. The people responsible are highly competent.

Their competence is discreetly handling the acquisition of COTS hardware at DOD prices from politically connected contractors. The contractors pocket the massive margins and fund the designated campaigns. These are the real priorities. Not whatever silly security concerns plebs like you have.

Any given tech nerd could do better at a fraction of the cost. But that wouldn't fund the mcmansions and range rovers and boats.

Comment Re: Took 7 years but... (Score 0) 159

including what is the largest PCB factory in the world, and what will likely be the largest solar panel factory in the world

Don't forget the Terafab in Grimes TX.

Looking at the decision, it really makes a lot of sense. The coast of Louisiana has been a nexus of transport in the US since before it became the US. Obviously, there is the Gulf of America (hehe) plus the Mississippi river. That led to a convergence of several interstate roads. Plus, there is ample barely drained low value land with sparse population, and no risk that it will see a bunch of sub/exburbs sprout up in the foreseeable future. The state government, similar to the other gulf states, isn't bat-shit crazy commie adjacent, so that's another plus.

If they can get it built before POTUS is (D) again, they can pencil whip all the federal endangered species pressure group bullshit.

Hurricanes are a thing though. Obviously that will interfere with operations from time to time.

Comment Re:How far back do the records exist? (Score 1) 151

Yes and now. It was also the Age of Discoveries. That means that basically each ship crossing the oceans at the time also had a part time or full time scientist on board, who was measuring everything he could put his instruments on. The Royal Navy and its requirements for logs also demanded a lot of data to be taken daily, including air and water temperature.

Comment Re:Not a pop yet (Score 1) 64

Thus, the fact that suddenly we have an instance of "the system" calling out and deprotecting a bubble-protected actor

You're on the right track with this. Except one thing; they didn't pull his bubble card. His fund was rapidly recapitalized before the headline even appeared. There is a lot at stake, the music is still playing, and they can't afford to have reality asserting itself on behalf of this chucklehead. His sandbox is a good deal smaller now, but they're letting him stay in the yard.

Comment Re:How far back do the records exist? (Score 5, Interesting) 151

Depending on the region you live in, it goes back until 1736 (e.g. Schoenbrunn, Vienna and Mannheim, Germany). In this year, several observatories in Central Europe agreed to take regularly measurements of weather data and keep a log of them.

And yes, that's the time when Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686 - 1736), Anders Celsius (1701 - 1744) and René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1686 - 1757) lived, each constructing his own type of thermometer, and defining his own temperature scale.

Comment Re:What is the actual last step? (Score 1) 96

There's no such thing as a panel for SCOTUS

Correct. I used the term "pattern." SCOTUS has a number of mechanisms for temporary rulings, often made by a single justice, or by the full court. That is not officially a "panel," but it has the same outcome, and so fits the pattern. Stays, injunctions pending appeal, emergency/summary court orders, etc. SCOTUS has done this many times and whether any given matter ever subsequently appears before the full court is not a given.

So while not termed a "panel," this is a distinction without a difference.

Comment Re:Is the bubble starting to burst? (Score 2) 64

Demand for hardware isn't going away

I think that's likely wrong given a serious financial collapse: much of the hardware in play here is booked sales a year or more out. If the bottom falls out, those orders will get cancelled. Further on (speculation upon speculation...,) recovery would be more circumspect, and the demand for hardware less absurd.

Comment Re:Not a pop yet (Score 4, Insightful) 64

Bubble pops don't happen all at once. They progress, first from the weak sisters to the big, name brand to-big-to-fail "omg my pension!" deals. Media exaggeration about historical finance collapses create the misperception that it happens very rapidly, with no warning. That's never the case; there are always precursors.

I don't know if this "Situational Awareness" is such a case, and you don't either. But this is exactly how the start of a larger collapse looks: a nasty little headline about some sketchy outfit no one has heard of, goes unnoticed outside finance or other narrow media sources. Then more, a couple months later. Then something happens that rocks the world.

Comment Re:What is the actual last step? (Score 1) 96

You're either repeating what I said or getting into esoterica that isn't relevant: this isn't even on SCOTUS radar yet, and it if ever gets there, SCOTUS won't be entertaining any of the possibilities you mention: no political force in the US is going to intervene with SCOTUS on behalf of "Xinuos" et al. in our lifetimes. That's fantasy that exists exclusively in only the more demented minds of IP rent seekers.

Comment Re:What is the actual last step? (Score 1, Informative) 96

However from recent news it appears that can be followed by an appeal which can be followed by a request to reconsider the appeal

Some rulings are made by partial ("panel") courts, for expedience, and when that happens the option exists to request the same court reconsider the ruling, but with a full bench ("en banc" court). That's what's going on here. This pattern of panel/en banc rulings exists at both appeals courts and SCOTUS.

When en banc SCOTUS makes a ruling or declines an appeal, that's the end of the road: there is no higher authority for appeals. It is possible to get SCOTUS to reconsider a ruling, but such requests are truly extraordinary, like POTUS or the Senate asking SCOTUS for reconsideration, with new evidence or some emergency situation at hand. None of that is even on the same planet as this Xinuos stuff.

They're probably not going to get their en banc hearing. And it won't take long to not get it, either: this isn't adjacent to any Great Issues of our time, and it's not an opportunity to thwart Trump on anything he cares about, so it's probably not going any further. If, by some tragic chance, they get an en banc hearing, they still have to win the appeal. Who knows though; appeals courts in the US are rife with irrational and/or highly partisan people. Anything could happen. If that came about, the victory will likely die in SCOTUS, like so many the other miscarriages of justice that come from federal appeals courts.

It's not really that complex. 94-ish district courts under 12-ish regional circuit appeals courts, then SCOTUS. Three layers. The "-ish" in there is because there are some special cases and special regions (DC), but those don't apply in this particular case.

Comment Re:About Fsck'n time... (Score 5, Interesting) 96

It was Attachmate, which swallowed Novell and spun of for instance SuSE Linux before being itself acquired by Micro Focus. SuSE S.A. is now a separate company in Luxembourg, and maybe, they are holding the original UNIX licenses, as it would fit into their portfolio.

Comment Re:Monopolistic power. (Score 1) 40

Exclusive contracts in media have been SOP since forever. If some YouTube sellout signs a specific exclusivity contract with YouTube, then they, you and Netflix have nothing to say about it. It's possible some of this could be found anti-competitive, when no specific contract is in play, but that's a road to a protracted legal battle taking years: feel free to hold your breath waiting for whatever utopian outcome you think you're owed on that one. What I find interesting is YouTube management clearly being un-self-aware and unconcerned, despite being a subsidiary of a company that has just been convicted as a monopolist. I can only take that to mean that they're confident that they've purchased sufficient political influence.

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